Akins Hotel “on the Square” and the People Who Operated It

Akins Hotel on-the-square, about 1950

Perhaps many remember the days when the Akins Hotel “on the Square” in Blairsville operated in its heyday of receiving guests and feeding crowds of people in its dining hall.

Mr. Marvin Akins who owned and operated it, was ably assisted by his wife, Mollie Coker Akins. Both were hard-working, outgoing entrepreneurs, a step ahead for their time.

Mollie and Marvin Akins

The two-story, rambling wood frame building that graced the side of the square where Blue Ridge Street enters was demolished in the early 1950s. But for many years it hosted tourists, lawyers and judges coming to town for court weeks, and people who just enjoyed spending days in a mountain town with favorable climate, especially in summer months.

In 1912 Marvin Akins purchased land on the corner of the square. On the property was a log cabin. Enterprising Marvin and his wife Mollie decided they could take in guests and allow them to sleep in the cabin’s loft on straw mattresses. The arrangements certainly were not quality accommodations, but better than not having a place at all. Some of their first guests were peddlers who came to sell their wares to the few stores in town.

Interest grew and Marvin saw the need of expansion. Over the years he was able to add to the original log cabin. Soon the hotel was a two-story structure boasting twelve bedrooms, four baths (in those days it was not uncommon for guests to share baths “on the hall”), a commodious dining room and a kitchen where much food was prepared. Some remember that Mr. Akins also purchased the Carrie Butt Boarding House, also on the square, about 1920. Perhaps this accounted for part of the expansion of the Akins Hotel from the original cabin that first took in guests in 1912.

The Akins Hotel was known for its good meals, and people often sought out “Miss Mollie’s” good cooking in her hotel dining room. A faithful worker in the hotel kitchen, and also assisting Mrs. Mollie with laundry for the hotel, care of the Akins children, and cleaning was Eliza Trammel, a black lady who worked for many years for the Akins family. Meals were generous, and by today’s standards, extremely low-cost. At one time they advertised “all you can eat for 25 cents.” I can recall eating in the dining hall and enjoying the quality and taste of the food. In 1944, as an “under classman” at Union County High School, I was selected to be one of the servers at the school’s Junior-Senior banquet held at the Akins Hotel. That gave me as a teenager opportunity to see the facility decked out for a special event for Union County High School students.

But the hotel business was not the only work Marvin Akins was engaged in. He once carried the U. S. mail between area post offices, Blairsville to Hemp and on to Blue Ridge, and other routes were from Blairsville to Caldwell Post Office at Track Rock, to Young Harris and to Hiawassee. Since these were station to station deliveries, his responsibility was getting the mail sacks to their locations, not delivering personal mail to individuals. He used his faithful mule and wagon to carry the mail on these routes.

He opened a barber shop and shoe repair shop in a portion of the old court house. He also operated the first mortuary in Blairsville, using an area behind the hotel for a funeral home. That humble beginning was the birth of the Akins Funeral Homes that his sons continued with and expanded at Blairsville and Blue Ridge. He also served as county coroner for a time. And in keeping with his father’s start in the Akins Hotel, the noted Milton Inn was founded and operated by Marvin’s son, Bonnell.

Their family and friends loved to hear the story of how Joseph Marion Akins and his sweetheart, Mary Elizabeth “Mollie” Coker eloped. It took them two tries to accomplish their goal of “running away” and getting married. The first attempt was foiled, but on the second try, their prearranged plans worked out. Marvin went to Bethel Methodist Church on Track Rock Road one bright Sunday in the fall of 1906, riding in his buggy drawn by a prancing horse. He helped Mollie in, and away they went to the home of a Rev. Jones who married them. That was October 21, 1906, Marvin’s twentieth birthday. Why they felt it necessary to elope has not been told. Maybe they were adventuresome, and certainly romantic—rather than parents being opposed to the match. At any rate, their marriage was solid, and both were hard workers. To them were born nine children, seven sons and two daughters: William Randolph, Benjamin Edd, Erwin Bonnell, Mauney Fred, Patrick Henry, Joseph Marvin, Raymond Douglas, Sarah Elizabeth and Mary Sue.

Joseph Marvin Akins’s great grandfather, John Akins, was in Union County by the time of the 1840 census. John Akins, born about 1795 in South Carolina, died November 27, 1863 in Union County. He and his wife Sarah (maiden name unknown, born 1810 in North Carolina, died 1875) were buried in unmarked graves in the Harmony Grove Baptist Church Cemetery, Union County. Joseph Marvin Akins’ grandfather (from whom he received his first name Joseph) was Joseph G. Akins (05/25/1926 – 07/13/1863) who married Mirah Flowers. Joseph was in the 6th Regiment of the Georgia Calvary Volunteers, Company F, during the Civil War and lost his life in the war. He was buried at the National Cemetery, Cumberland Gap, Claiborne, TN. Marvin’s grandmother, Mirah, continued to live on in Union County and was buried at Harmony Grove Cemetery. Joseph Marvin’s parents were Benjamin Calip Akins (07/21/1858 – 12/31/1933) and Rossie Lindy Fields Akins (10/22/1865 – 05/09/1898). They were interred at the Harmony Grove Baptist Church Cemetery.

Joseph Marvin Akins (10/21/1886 – 05/04/1971) and his wife, Mollie C. Akins (02/15/1888 – 10/22/1967) were laid to rest in the (New) Blairsville Cemetery. They were blessed with long and productive lives.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Dec. 2, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Through Hardship Came Courage: The Harrison and Nina Mays Collins Family

How our ancestors coped with hard situations they faced in life was told by Vera Lorraine Collins Goodwin in her family story submitted for The Heritage of Union County, 1832-1994. After reading what Vera wrote, I thought how facing hardships really bore out the truth of how courageous our ancestors were as they “made do” with what they had and still lived a victorious life amidst difficult times.

Vera Lorraine Collins was born July 15, 1917. Her parents were James Harrison Collins (4/30/1889 – 12/17/1928) and Nina Mays Collins (2/26/1899 – 3/10/1990). Her parents were married November 30, 1914. Vera had one sibling, an older brother George Blaine Collins (10/28/1915 – 12/28/1975).

Like many of us whose ancestors were early settlers in Union County, Vera traced her lineage back to Thompson Collins (ca. 1785 – ca. 1858) and Celia Self Collins (ca. 1787 – 09/03/1880). These were her 4th great grandparents. Firstborn of Thompson and Celia, Archibald Collins (ca.1811- ?) who married Mary “Polly” Nix (ca. 1818 - ?) were her great, great, great grandparents. Their son, James N., called “Jim Jesse” Collins (1842 - ?) who married Mary Ann Duckworth, were her great, great grandparents. Next in her lineage came their son, William “Bill Posey” Collins who married Margaret Dyer on September 12, 1886 in Union County, her grandparents, parents of her father, James Harrison Collins. Tracing all these roots and their branches can take volumes, and that is not the purpose of this article. We want to look at how the Harrison and Nina Mays Collins family lived courageously through some hard times, typical of many who lived and worked on the small farms of Union County in the early years of the twentieth century before modern conveniences were known and utilized.

In 1923 when Vera Lorraine was six years old, her parents moved to what she called the “Vess Collins Place” at Track Rock (a farm that had belonged to Vester Eugene Collins, who may have “gone west” prior to the Harrison Collins family moving to that farm). Vera recalls that she went to Track Rock School (probably held in the Track Rock Baptist Church building). Her teacher was John Turner. Not too long after the family moved to Track Rock, Vera received a bad cat scratch on her hand. The hand became severely infected and was swollen and very painful. Her parents had no means of transportation to get to the nearest doctor, so a neighbor, Mr. Coker, took Vera and her mother to Young Harris for treatment. Vera remembers that the doctor met them on the steps of his office on the campus of Young Harris College. He took a look at the infected hand, and without benefit of any sort of anesthesia, he lanced the young girl’s hand right there on the steps of his office. We can almost wince at the thought of the pain to this young child. But having the infection released must have eased the pain, for she remembers sleeping all the way back to Track Rock as the mule-drawn wagon rocked along the dirt road toward her home. The hand miraculously healed and she was left with no permanent impairment to it.

Syrup-making was one of the fall activities at Track Rock, and in much of Union County. It was also one of the money crops of mountain farmers. Vera remembers her Uncle Thomas Mays driving a Kissel automobile up from Atlanta to bring her Grandmother Mays to visit them while they lived at Track Rock. He purchased several gallon pails of sorghum syrup to take back to Atlanta with him. Once they were stopped by authorities on the way back across the mountain to Atlanta. The federals were probably searching for contraband moonshine, and seeing that the Kissel was somewhat overloaded in the trunk area, they stopped it. Thomas Mays, however, would not allow “the law” to open his buckets of sorghum until they first got a search warrant to do so. Imagine their disappointment when they found, not moonshine whiskey, but sweet sorghum syrup in the aluminum pails.

From their Track Rock home, the Harrison Collins family next moved to what had been the home of Vera’s great uncle, brother to her grandmother Margaret Dyer Collins. This was the farm home of Narve Dyer who had temporarily gone to Dalton to work at the carpet mills during the Great Depression. At this Choestoe home, Vera Lorraine Collins remembers happily that she attended New Liberty School when Miss Goldie Collins was the teacher, and then Choestoe School where Mrs. Helen Cordelia Collins Twiggs was her teacher.

Vera’s father, Harrison Collins, loved music and was a music teacher by the “shaped note” method. He often used his talent to teach singing schools in some of the churches throughout the area. Then her father became ill. They moved first to Suit, NC to be near Harrison’s brother, Ervin Collins. There her father farmed as long as he was able, but his cancer and Bright’s disease became worse. Neighbors and relatives made up enough money to send Harrison and Nina Mays Collins by train from Ranger, NC to Atlanta for medical treatment. Nina got work at Martel Mills there to help earn a living, for Harrison was no longer able to work. Vera’s Uncle Ervin Collins moved the Harrison Collins’s household goods, and his nephew and niece, Blaine and Vera, by wagon all the way from Ranger to Atlanta, a trip that took several long days. Vera remembers stopping at Choestoe to spend the night with her great aunt Mintie Dyer Souther (and Uncle Jeptha). As they went on, they camped out along the way, and sometimes spent the nights with kind relatives or friendly people in route. The mules pulled the wagon, amidst downtown traffic—much less then, of course—through Five Points in Atlanta to her Grandmother Mays’ boarding house on Bradley Avenue. Then they went on to the mill village house where her parents lived at Hapeville. Her father was so sick, that, while her mother worked, she and Blaine took turns staying with him during the daytime, one going to school one day and the other the next. Her father died there just eight days before Christmas (12/17/1928).

Vera Lorraine Collins married Rev. James Goodwin and they had three children: James Thomas Goodwin, Billy Ray Goodwin, and Nina Lorraine Goodwin. Rev. Goodwin died March 8, 1985 after over fifty years of marriage to Vera Lorraine.

Through the hardships Vera’s parents, Harrison and Nina Mays Collins faced, Vera herself learned much about courage and fortitude and taking the bad with the good in life. “We shall overcome,” was more than a motto; it was a way of life.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 17, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.